Southern Front 2025

I headed up to Raleigh, North Carolina for Southern Front game con last weekend. Overall, I had a really nice time. I haven't been to a con in almost 18 months so it was good to get back in the groove. 

I took my modernized What A Cowboy variant, Shakedown and hosted a game on Friday evening. I also took Rubber and Lead and three races were run for a few attendees.

My first game of the weekend was My Galley Sally, an older club-level ruleset for ancient Galley combat. I've never played that sort of game but it was a blast.

We, the Greeks!

If there's a choice, I always take yellow.

Some action.

I managed the first ram of the battle and got a terrific result, sinking the enemy vessel outright!

More boat-smashing, boarding and arrow-firing!

At the end, two ships had been captured, one Greek and one Persian and one sunk. There were many casualties as you can see! The Greeks were deemed the victors by the GM.

After dinner, I hosted my Shakedown game. We had the Latin Kings and Outlaws in a drugs for money transaction. The Cops and Bloods both showed up mid-transaction and chaos ensued.

I made some appropriate kill markers!

Officer Axel Foley and Dale Jr. get into it.

At the end of the engagement, the Bloods and Latin Kings were the big winners, with the Bloods making off with the cash and the LKs retaining possession of their product. The Cops and skinheads both took a beating. It was a mess but everyone enjoyed it!

The next morning, Mark and I both settled in for some Blood and Plunder. We were graced with a large, pretty table.

Mark and I split a detachment. He took the veteran gunners and leader and I took the less experienced melee pirates. That was intentional, to create a focused very powerful unit (not unlike a Kill Stack in Squad Leader).

Marks gunners work on capturing the pig sty.

A messy brawl on the beach!

My crew gets into it with the French buccaneers in the village. Blue markers are French casualties. 

Mark had taken a beating over to the far left there. I was ambushed by some uppity villagers who shot my boys int he backs!

My opponent and I were both decimated by the filthy villagers and our remaining fellows shook hands and decided to get out!

And there he goes, running past the mob!

Even though mark and I failed to capture the spy in the center (the gal in the red dress by the well), our teammates on the left and right flanks performed well, giving our side the win.

I hosted three rounds of Rubber and Lead after lunch. It was tough pulling in players, but those who played got hooked and kept playing.

The high degree-of-difficulty maneuver of crossing the finish line in reverse with the cement mixer!

My final game was a Western Desert 6mm game of Mein Panzer. It was set just after Rommel landed in North Africa and had started probing British positions. The game ended up being a 1 v 1 with a fellow I had hosted the Pirate game earlier. I took command of Ze Germans and Joe was the British commander.

The British started hidden so I deployed to send my tanks, a mix of Pz II, III and IVs, up the road on the left while my infantry company and aufklarung squadron handled my right flank. The three hills, circled in blue, are the objectives.

An 8-rad becomes the fist casualty. Turns out the British armored cars are on that flank!

I got a PaK38 deployed on the hilltop in short order. A PaK36 would follow a turn later.

My Panzers creep forward. 2-Pounders and A13s await them. 

I sent the motorcycles ahead to harass the positions in the center. That firebase needed to be disrupted.

The armored car battle on the right was brutal and both sides took considerable casualties. My ATGs were very effective. 

The motorcycles were also very effective once they got right up on the infantry position. 

But over on the left, my tanks had taken a slow beating which all of a sudden became a waterfall of pain. Many Panzers were brewed up and I was having real trouble silencing the Brits.

Then to cap things off, one of the command tanks was brewed up. The other command tank promptly failed a morale test as badly as one can fail (rolled a 20 on a d20). We called the game. Although I'd had some success on the right, the left and center were just too much and without a sandstorm or smoke screen in front of my tanks, I'd never get through six hull-down tanks and two dug-in ATGs. 

We really enjoyed the game and the scenario. It was a fantastic way to cap off the weekend. 

Another successful Southern Front and I look forward to the next!

Space Aliens

 I was looking for a quick build and painting project a week or so ago and landed on completing the last 10 Wargames Atlantic sci-fi convict models I had never done. The first 20 are the Goblinoid fellas in this post from a year ago.

I used high elf warrior heads this time and a far different color scheme. I'm rather happy with the result.

Yes, I'm aware, they look similar to Dr. Suess' Thing 1 and Thing 2. That was coincidental of course. 😆😆

Be well!

New Cars (and cards)

 There's nothing like playing some Rubber and Lead to make one want to put a few new cars together. That's exactly what I did, so meet the new additions!

Left to right, they are Hell On Wheels, Boombox, Mighty Aphrodite and The Monster.

The other side.

I reviewed stats and equipment for all the cars in the collection to ensure these new additions were totally unique, so they aren't just new models, but are also statistically a little different from everything else.

During the last gaming session, we came up with the most obvious Shenanigans card idea ever! I made three copies and have added them to the deck. 

Not sure how that rated being a new idea, but was such any easy addition. 

Racing on Sunday Afternoon

 Happy Monday! On Sunday afternoon a group of us got together at Wayne's office for some gaming with a couple of my gaming creations. First up on the agenda was Rubber and Lead, testing out my new tracks. 

The first race featured Ziggy in Ol' Yeller, Wayne in Firebug, Mark in The Green Machine and David in Malibu Stacy. 

The end of the first lap was a bit of a Donnybrook.

Ziggy won the first race, despite being spun around halfway through.

Wayne volunteered to sit out the second game so I could drive. I drew the Blue Blazer, Ziggy got The Pony, Mark was in The Silver Bullet while David was in The H8 Team. 

I got the pole position and "Itchy Trigger Finger" so I was dropping oil slicks right out of the gates. I stayed in the lead for the entire race, wire to wire and for the first time ever, won a race of Rubber and Lead!

My moment of glory, eight years in the making.

After R&L, I pulled out CartWars Ox Cart Racing. I don't think it's ever been shown on the blog. I've really only ever played it with family on the kitchen table.

The five carts streaking across the field!

Ziggy celebrates a victory! We ran three races, Wayne won twice and Zig won once. I finished 3rd, 3rd and 2nd. 

It's a goofy, fun, beer & pretzels game that the guys rather enjoyed. All in all, a really enjoyable Sunday afternoon of themed gaming.

Upgrading My Game

 I plan to take my destructive car racing game Rubber and Lead to Southern Front next month. I haven't run it at a convention since 2018. The one and only problem with the game, which is otherwise gaming perfection, is that the track boards I made many years age are 24" x 48" 1/4 inch MDF and both heavy and clumsy. A few years ago I bought some lighter alternatives but never did anything with them. Well, toting the game five hours to Raleigh is just the inspiration this guy needed to finish the project. Ingredients:

2020 / 2021?

3" X 3" postit notes

I sketched out track designs on the sticky notes in such a way that they'd match up in many combinations of four allowing for a polymorphic track.

In June of 2021 I found the perfect items to use for the track boards.

I sketched the track shapes on the boards in pencil, basically copying what I'd done on the postit notes. Then I let the boards age for fours years as a "project of lower priority."

After agreeing to host R&L in Raleigh, I decided it was high time I get on that track 3.0 project. Step 1 - basic green & black.

Rather unappealing for sure but you get the gist. The board with white lines across the track are "start" and "fire line" track sections.

A bit more effort and now I have boards like these

The white goo is glossy Mod Podge, ultimately resulting in these

I made two boards with fire lines because, why not? The line can be ignored easily enough if the board isn't in the #2 position. This should allow for fifty board configurations, I think. Either way, it's a bunch. They'll get their first next Sunday when I take it over to a Labor Day gaming get-together with the gang.

Frostgrave Campaign Game 4 - The Orb

 After a four-month hiatus, David, Ziggy and I got together for the next installment of our Frostgrave series. I selected the scenario "The Orb" mainly because I had short notice and it doesn't require special terrain. I spent my previously-earned gold on upgrading my Thug to a Barbarian - a premium close-combat specialist. David spent a ton of gold he'd been camping on hiring three Rangers turning his group into a ranged-combat nightmare.

My deployment corner.

The Orb and Imps

David's group (near in the woods) and Ziggy's in the far corner.

Turn one was the usual slow rollout.  A Frost Wraith wandering monster did appear near my group right off the bat.

Not to mention two imps headed my direction and a blasted Fire Panther (or Snow Leopard) wandered in a turn later.

Imps are pretty weak so I felt confident charging into one of them with my Apprentice, Sweet Dee. I rolled a 1. Ziggy, rolling for the imp, rolled a 20, a crit. Dee out. Damn.

I did make an agreement with David to let me break the Orb, worth 25 XP, if I agreed not to prevent him from taking the treasure. My barbarian and and infantryman ran up to the Orb and smashed it! David and I had been on each other's case since the get-go, so this was a nice temporary reprieve, mid-game.

Miao Yin, my bard, handled the imps pretty easily, allowing my thief and another infantryman (Meat Cheetah and Sand Panther) who were lugging treasures easy passage to the exit.

So what happens? Of course a wandering monster zombie appears right there! Blast.

My wizard, Billy Thorpe, quickly summoned a floating skull to keep the zombie occupied. It worked really well and the zombie was pinned and pushed away!

David's sneaky wizard teleported in to grab the middle treasure, the teleported out a turn later. What a snake.

The outing was a success for my group, the Children of the Sun. We earned 200 gold and found a magic Sword that grants +2 Will. I earned 270 XP total, worth three level-ups. I upped FIGHT by +1 and improved both Raise Zombie and Heal to make them easier to cast. I also fired the reliable thief and replaced her with a more competent Treasure Hunter. The Treasure Hunter was given the new magic sword. Although my Apprentice and Javelineer were knocked out during the game, both made full recoveries. As always, looking forward to the next outing!

Newly Painted Things

 I finished up a handful of miniatures this weekend. They'd been in progress for weeks, I've just been going slowly. 

First up, some Battletech minis. This is the Recon Lance box. I've kept them in the same Marik livery as the last few I did. 

Those are a Firestarter, Javelin, Spector and Ostscout. More light mech goodness, and quickly becoming my preferred class. 

Next is a Brigade Game 28mm Red Russian machine gun for the Revolution. 

I don't think I ever posted a picture of the Red infantry that I painted first. Here they are. 

And finally, I also completed the next group of 20 Basmachi fighters to oppose the Bolsheviks.

Those models and the Russians are Wargames Atlantic plastics. Excellent models as always. 

New Rules Playtesting

 Good Morning! I should have a boatload of newly painted miniatures coming up later this week. I'm very close on a second lot of Afghans and some other things. But while I wait for mother nature to get a bit more cooperative from a humidity standpoint, my mind and the dice have been active. I've been thinking about taking a couple of games to Southern Front in Raleigh, NC in September. I've already signed up to take my modern What A cowboy conversion but am considering a second. I came up with some fairly simple 3rd World combat rules to re-purpose my AK47 collection. Nothing wrong with AK47R, for sure, but it's not conducive to a multi-player convention game.

Ziggy came by yesterday afternoon for a test of version 1.0 of the rules. It was a very productive couple of hours.

No real AAR to speak of, although my government forces were soundly thumped by Zig's rebel fighters. A handful of rules were altered, tweaked or otherwise re-created during and after the session. The game is now to point where it's a solid set of rules on it's own. I just might take it to Raleigh! Be well everyone.